The monsoon is creating havoc across the state. Roads and bridges are collapsing at an alarming rate. Sanggam bridge over the Siyom river, connecting Pangin and Boleng in Siang district, is the latest to collapse on Tuesday. The Bailey bridge was very old and weak. The repeated incidents of collapse of bridges, roads and retaining walls should be a wakeup call for the engineers of the state. Considering the fact that every year Arunachal is battered by monsoon rains, it is time that the engineers started planning future projects keeping that in mind.
Most of the time, when monsoon causes damages, the authorities, in particular engineers, put the blame on nature. It is definitely not true every time. Some of the damages have been caused due to wrong engineering technology. They have failed to take into consideration the monsoon effect while executing the projects. Many of the engineering departments are still following the old obsolete technologies. There are premier technical institutes like the NIT in Jote and the NERIST in Nirjuli in the state. The government should take help from them to develop a particular technology to execute major infrastructure projects in the state. Also, the in-service engineers should be compulsorily sent for refresher courses, so that they learn modern engineering technologies.